A Fate Evaded
by JWillsFB
Summary: "Propping herself up on the weakness of her arm, her head hangs for a moment before she opens her eyes properly to the blinding light. The sudden white from the motion causes her to squint back as she lowers her head again to try and recollect any memory. Trying to grasp onto something she's never quite had but she knows it's within a tangible reach."
1. Chapter 1

And that's when it hit. Icily spiked liquid flooding upwards, rising within his nasal passages, pooling into his ears. Above him as he sank, he could hear life evade him, a flurry for survival against the odds. Yet he couldn't manage to push himself to grasp for the surface, so he let the surroundings intoxicate him.

Was this it? Is this what it felt like to die at your own hands? To feel every inch and contour of your body being consumed by a fate you cannot control?  
>He couldn't allow this any longer. As much as he longed for the Atlantic to dispose of his misery, he couldn't he couldn't bring himself to open his lungs and allow the water to invade, attack and subside. He had to fight against it. It took everything. Every nerve ending prickled into motion as his brain started to acknowledge the world around him, as though it was operating for the first time. A ringing sounded in his ice fragmented ears and he reached outwards, straining towards the life that treaded beyond him, fighting for life also.<p>

The boat had seen her. Despite her surroundings, a sudden warm calm rushed through her. They were getting close and the feeling changed. A deep cold ran through her as something grabbed her from the deathly depths of whatever was below. It pulled her under. She fought against her captivator, struggling against the wraths. She finally reached the surface and up with her she pulled another body. Clinging to her and not being able to make sense of the world his voice crackled to life, accompanied by an eerie formation of frozen breath.

"R, Rose.."

Her eyes blinded from the sudden exposure to icy salt water and the shock from what was happening, she grabbed against the life boat that had now reached her position and as the officer pulled her from her temporary fate she slid into what was either the final fight for life or unfulfilling sleep. 


	2. Chapter 2

A soul stirred beside her, lifting her weighted eyelids for a second before her subconscious snapped them shut. Hiding from the World and every damned person in it. Heavy limbs slumped against the sheets, cheek crinkled against the pillow cotton. Acid tears threaten to sting at the linen ravaged skin. She's here in the moment, but her heart wants to rip her body from it's rest and find it's other half. But it doesn't. It stays. Silent. Beaten. Burned. Immobilized. Blurs.

He's here. He's definitely here. Surely a fire wouldn't rip through his lungs with every rasping breath if he wasn't. Wasn't death supposed to be weightless? But here he is. Weighting down the sheets he's sprawled across. Dreamed visions blurring further, he disappears into the darkness for the last time.

White noise buzzes into focus in her ears. Comparatively warm against the burn of the ocean. Voices perhaps? Something she recognizes Something in her mind distantly clicks to alert her she shouldn't be comforted by the familiar voice, but she felt the blood rushing back to heart, adrenaline coursing along, trying to force her eyes to open.

"She's stable, but she's not come back round since we found her. To be honest Sir, we don't really know at this point whether or not any significant damage has been done. She's extremely distant and who knows how long she'll be in this state or if she'll even make it only certain prognosis I can make is that she's still breathing. Maybe talking to her will help? A lot of patients respond to familiarity.."

"I doubt I'm really the one she'd want to hear if I'm being entirely honest with you.."

"Mr Hockley, I know this is hard for you. Seeing a loved one in such a helpless position can ignite a guilt inside of us that we didn't think possible..."

"You don't understand. Really, you don't. I'm currently the guiltiest man alive.. Arrest me on charge of trying to keep what is mine. On trying to keep her safe.."

She starts to come around as someone leaves. Reality continues to connect back to her brain and as her lids flicker past her vision, she focuses on the figure in front of her.

Cal?

Surely, in this moment, fear would instantaneously handcuff her body and press it harder against the bed, imprisoning her further into her corpse stance. But it didn't. Instead it winded her lungs through her rib cage, crumpled her heart in it's cruel hands.

"Doctor?... Doctor!..."

As his figure blurs out the door, her mind further stumbles from it's slumbered burial, her thoughts spark into her body and an all too real conscious takes over. Propping herself up on the weakness of her arm, her head hangs for a moment before she opens her eyes properly to the blinding light. The sudden white from the motion causes her to squint back as she lowers her head again to try and recollect any memory. Trying to grasp onto something she's never quite had but she knows it's within a tangible reach.

"Doctor.. She's awake.."

A surge of adrenaline sprints along with her pulse as the door bangs open on it's hinges. Everything is moving too slowly but too quickly simultaneously. Every note of sound rings, echoing a buzz for her to hang onto to make sense of it all.

"Rose, you're back.. You're back and you're here and you're safe.."

Rose finds herself being pulled into Cal's chest as he all too recklessly pulls her by the shoulder against him and rests his too heavy hand on her head. HE fixes her eyes to his as he holds her head between his hands, steadying the dizzying thoughts in her head, but draining the blood from her face. Stone eyes set against hers.

"I thought you'd never come back to me. I thought I'd lost the most valuable thing I have"

A salty trail inched down every gaunt contour of his cut features, finding it's landing spot on Rose's hand, resting in her lap. It stung every cell as it made contact, an acidic ripple across porcelain. Distancing herself in thought again, she remembered something she'd heard when she was younger. About Lion who fell in love a lamb. Ha. this hadn't happened here. Cal had just fell in love with the idea that he could manipulate her into whatever he wanted. Mold her to his ideal.

He could snap her arms around him to comfort his sorrows. Snap her to her knees like a king would bring his people to their knees. Snap, snap, snap...

As Cal held her dazed head, the Doctor was snapping his fingers in her vision, calculating her responses.

"It'll take a bit for her to come around properly. Don't put too much pressure on her to respond properly.."

He left the room the two alone.

As things started to piece together in Rose's mind, she could make out that they were alone. Evidently destined to be this way forever it now seemed. The thought came with an undeniable feeling of nausea, a fizzle of black started to blur into her peripheral vision and she could feel herself swaying - whether the majority of this sensation was being put on by her mind, she couldn't tell.

"Please, no.. Stay here!"

He shakes her hard. Too hard. She can feel her thoughts bang against her skull. And then nothing.


	3. Chapter 3

Sunlight streams through the window, laying itself upon her china skin from an all too familiar angle. Silk under her fingertips, she knows she's back home. With him.

For the first time, her body responds as she stretches to smooth out her creased muscles, followed by her eyelids, scratching and stinging against her irises as they're exposed to the rays coming from the left side of the room. Blurred at first, they gradually focus and she watches the dust particles dance for a second. The dark mahogany of the floorboards glint gently in the beams as she takes in her surroundings, re-painting every detail in her mind like a new picture - even though she's seen it all before.

After a minute or so, things start to come back to her in a somewha understandable order. Feeling completely paralyzed,  
>the light. the snapping.. Cal.<p>

Her heart crumbles and her chest falls as her body lets out a suppressed sigh. She moves her head and a halo of aching causes her ahnd to reach for her forehead. Slowly, she slips one leg out of the bed and then the other. As she takes a footstep forward, she steadies herself as the floorboards creak along with her. Moving towards the door a shouting becomes clearer and, moving a bit quicker, Rose presses herself up against the woodwork,

"Look, I have bigger thigns to deal with than my damned employees! My goddamned fiancee is lying unconscious and who the hell knows if she's ever going to wake up?!...!

A slight pause..

"...I swear to God, if you bother me with any of this again I will personally come down to the office and end your contract with us myself! Do you understand?!... Yes, I thought so, now buck up your ideas and do the goddamned job that I hired you for!"

She heard him slam the phone down with such force, she could've sworn she felt her legs tremble. Then she realised that her body was shaking. She rested back against the wall, still standing, but she lost the weight in her feet for a second and her stance ended in a collapsed heap on the floor, spiked pain shooting through the base of her spine. She assumed she landed with a substantial bang because not a moment after and she could hear someone rapidly making their way up the stairs.

"Rose!.."

Cal burst in with as much force as he'd slammed the phone and he was by her side, her face in his hands again and she tried with every whimping effort to brush him away.

"Rose, please don't.."

His voice was somewhat pained and in her vulnerable state, her efforts to push him away fell on a sorry heart.

"Come one, let's get you back into bed"

Helping her up, he was careful not to hurt her further and once she was back in her safe haven he rested down on the bed next to her, hand resting on top of hers.

"How long have you been awake?"

She hadn't even thought about this herself and so her answer was another question,

"How long have I been asleep?"

He smirked slightly looking down at his feet. Not the vile smirk she was used to this time. It had a school-boy quality about it. That was, until, it turned to a frown.

"Two months. You've been dead to the World.."

Silence fell between them as Rose tried to contemplate what he was telling her, but she didn't have much time to think further before he bagan again.

"You were in the water for hours Rose. Hours you could not imagine. Not even begin to contemplate.."

His eyes filled with an unnerving amount of emotion and Rose felt herself squirm beneath the grip of his hand. Awkwardly,  
>she'd never seen him this emotional.<p>

"We finally got to New York.. You were in such a critical condition when we reached the hospital.."

He strained against the words that were next to come out of his mouth. He turned to her and looked her dead in the eyes.

"Rose.."

Unnerved again as his hand met gently with her cheek.

"..Your heart stopped."

She tried to swallow the lump in her throat.

"..They managed to rescusitate you, but my God Rose, if you'd... Gone then, I'd have killed myself too".

She didn't understand it. It'd take the loss of her life for him to see she was worth something aside from his looming inheritance?

He must've been watching her face intently,

"Rose, I know this must be.. Had for you to understand, we can talk about it more when you've been through things in your own head.."

She nodded.

He slowly got up from her bedside and gave her, what she thought was supposed to be, a comforting smile, but she knew all too well that Cal struggled with emotions. And these resurfaced again as he was about to turn out of her room,

"I love you". The door clicked shut.

Her stomach twisted in a nauseating wave. She felt panicked. She wanted to run but she wanted to stay. The way Cal had been,  
>she didn't know - she couldn't be warming to him. She just couldn't. They were too different. And there was someone else. He'd been on her mind since the second she first gained and sight of conciousness.<p>

She felt a loss for him. A heartbreak amongst the flurry of what she'd just heard. Her heart might've stopped but it was definately alive now. Pounding against the words she'd just heard. 


	4. Chapter 4

A cool breeze on her arm woke her from a dreamless tire but her eyes remained closed. She felt the bedsheets rise and the mattress lowerslightly as someone climbed in bed next to her. She turned over to face him, he spine still throbbing from the fall. She shuffled across the bed to his arms,

"Jack.."

The embrace she was met with didn't match the name and she shied away from the stranger intruding her perimeter. Forcing herself to snap out of the dreamy haze, she realised it could only be one person.

"No.. Rose.." Her heart thumped. She knew an innevitable blow to the side of her face was sure to come.. But it didn't.

She heard him turn on the soft light and sit up, placing a hand on her shoulder. She didn't want to open her eyes, so she suggled her face down into the sheets and slowly peeked out the top of them. Timid to say the least she was met with Cal and in the glow of the lamp, his face was softened.. Almost comparable to.. No. She would never compare him to this. Ever.

"Do you want me to leave? I will.. I just thought.. Thought you might be lonely?"

Lonely? She was. Now he'd acknowledged a potential emotion she may be feeling, she felt every sharpened edge of it. Then it made her wonder if he'd slept next to her every night when she'd not been conscious to protest. Maybe her face showed everything she was thinking because he answered,

"You've been asleep for so long, I thought it might be strange for you to be awake and alone.. I didn't want to disturb you,  
>I wanted you to get better properly, so I've been in my room most nights.."<p>

He mouth spoke before her head thought,

"Most nights?"

He paused,

"Some nights I could't help myself.. I'd come and sit next to you and just watch you. You were so incredibly peaceful. So incredibly beautiful.."

What was this?

"Just watching you Rose, seeing you like this. It made me realise. I've been so ungrateful for what I've been blessed with..  
>You".<p>

She'd never felt further from the place she was in. Was this it? Cal's ever awaited apology for his inhuman and cruel doings? Slapping her across the face? Shooting at her point-blank? Not coming back to see if she'd been pulled under...

She turned around away from him. She wasn't going to forgive him.

"Rose, please.."

She ignored his plea.

"I know you don't want to hear it and I know you won't believe me Rose. But I've changed. I'll prove it."

"It's going to take a hell of a lot Cal."

He turned the light off but he didn't leave. He stayed, but made sure he stayed as far from her as possible.

"I know you don't want me here.. But I'm not leaving you again."


End file.
